Page 12 of The Faceless Omega

Lennox exhaled harshly and dragged his eyes from the blinking promise and back to the slightly blurred still photo from the security camera footage. “I wish I could say this was going to be a pleasant call.” It felt wrong to be so agitated while looking at the figure of his admitted obsession with one leg sticking out of a modest sedan. He remembered how that leg felt beneath his palm, wrapped around his hip, and hooked over his shoulder. He remembered the taste of her on his tongue. He even remembered the way the mask that looked so fuzzy to the camera sparkled under the light of the ballroom chandeliers.

Carey made a sound of confusion. “Something the matter?”

Lennox sat back, pulling his hands from the desk. Maybe this wasn’t one of those things he could split his focus between. “Matilda just let herself into my home.”

“Oh?” Too much interest loaded that simple response. “That’s a strange way to tell your father things have smoothed out between you two.”

“I can barely stand the concept of her existence,” Lennox replied. “She claims Mom gave her my access codes. I sure as fuck didn’t. So it was one of you, or someone I can fire. I’m only asking once.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carey said, his tone defensive. “And I don’t appreciate that accusation. I may be getting older, but I’m still your father. Show a little respect.”

“I respected you so hard I nearly committed myself to a woman whose death I would celebrate. There need to be boundaries,” Lennox said. “I’m not a child living under your care anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. I am my own alpha now, father.”

As he always did at the reminder, Carey made a sound of displeasure. No alpha liked losing control. “You’ve always been too much of a dreamer, Len,” Carey said after a beat. “I haven’t spoken to Mattie in months, but I think she and your mother still talk sometimes. Female stuff. I stay out of it. You should really reconsider—”

“Right after you reconsider prioritizing your actual son.” Lennox drew a breath. “I’m busy. You understand that I’ll be changing my codes and not sharing them with either of you moving forward. Talk later.” He didn’t wait for his father’s response before disconnecting. More than likely, it would only be argumentative. Most of their conversations tended to reach a point where they devolved into an argument nowadays.

Lennox allowed himself a moment to breathe through the lingering frustration of that conversation, and the one before it. He raked a hand through his hair, counted to five, and darkened the monitor again. Changing the codes needed to come first.

Then he could settle in and see what information had come back on his sweet little omega.

****

Day. From. Hell.She had no better description for the day she’d been trudging through since the butt-crack of dawn. Admittedly, for those first few seconds, it had been pretty nice. It was a little hard to believe she was still in the same day she’d started out in that oversized, comfy bed, tucked beneath Lennox Mitchell’s muscular arm. In so many ways, that entire happening felt like a hazy dream she’d hallucinated. Probably months earlier.

Brinley slumped in her desk chair, trying to simply breathe through the mess of feelings on permanent tumble-cycle in her chest. The whole thing had her belly so upset she hadn’t been able to eat lunch, even, and some jackass had cranked the office heater up too high. Again. But she couldn’t say anything. Gods forbid the female complain about the temperature in a shared office space. She just had to endure the pinpricks of sweat that had broken out around her hairline and the way her clothes were starting to feel itchy.

At least she’d managed to scrape together enough words to meet their minimum article standard, after a small uncomfortable altercation with her boss, and get that submitted before the morning was done. Project: Millionaire Masquerade was complete in every way except for the dotted line that was the final detail of her raise.

A rank, sour stench cloyed its way into Brinley’s nostrils and she scrunched up her face before even realizing the probable source. It was always worse after midday. She really was having the worst luck.

From off to the side, surely propped above the cubicle barricade, her least favorite coworker’s voice called, “Looking a little down there, Young. Did you not score yourself a sugar daddy to whisk you away from your troubles?” He chuckled at his own joke.

Brinley bristled and pried her eyes open to glare up at the man. He was more than a decade older than her, but his maturity level had never graduated high school. “Do you not have anything better to do than bother me in the middle of the day, Jerry?”

His laughing smile fell. “It’sJerrod, dammit.”

She knew that, of course. But since he refused to treat her with a modicum of human decency, she refused to use his proper name. It was still more than he deserved in her mind. “Go stink up someone else’s sandbox, please.” She waved her hand in a clear motion of dismissal.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?” Jerrod leaned further down over the partition, but made no effort to lower his voice. “I hope you failed so hard they toss your stupid ass down to the mail room or some shit. Make you play errand girl for a while. Teach you a little fuckin’ humility.”

The more he spoke, the more her stomach churned. Brinley turned her head in an effort to escape his genuinely repulsive body odor situation. “Seriously, go away,” she said. “I will never be your little gofer. In your dreams.”

Jerrod snickered but straightened. “Bet you couldn’t even do that right, anyway.”

He has got to be kidding.She knew he was still upset that he hadn’t been gifted her winning party invite—and therefore the assignment—over her, but he was being worse than usual. She was not in the mood for it. She even opened her mouth to tell him so when their boss’s door flew open and the man himself leaned into the hall.

“Young! My office, now!”

The fight drained out of her system.

Jerrod laughed louder, sounding exactly like the bully who succeeded in getting his victim called into the principal’s office. “Maybe they’ll give you another costume for the new gig!”

Brinley pushed to her feet, turned her back to her unhygienic, asshole colleague, and squared her shoulders.I am not being demoted to gofer. Absolutely not.So what she’d deleted a few photos from the drive? One way or another, everything she’d deleted had been unusable. Would her boss love to know that she could one-hundred-percent identify one of the partygoers as anti-spotlight, ultra-rich billionaire Lennox Mitchell? Without a doubt. Was she going to use that to help herself? No. She treasured the memory of her time with Lennox too much to betray him that way.

“Close the door,” her boss said sharply as she stepped into his office.

Brinley quietly obeyed, then hesitated. The air in the room was oppressive. It stank like sweat, tobacco, and old take-out. The wall-mounted heater he had for his office space emitted a low hum and his worn chair squeaked in protest when he resettled in it. She didn’t want to be there. She very much did not want to be in that space. She didn’t remember it ever making her so uncomfortable.

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